scars in both directions
by WDW
Summary: These are the things that Stanford notices, afterwards. (bill left, leaves, will leave a piece behind) [pt. 1 of 'buying gold']


The unearthly shrieks and screams of demons still echoed distantly, but the sky had turned bright Oregon blue and when a gust of warm wind blows past with a faint aroma of pine sap, Stanford knows that the fight is over.

Cool relief soothed his aching body, every nerve burning from Bill's torture, but then Ford sees the slumped figure in the middle of the clearing, head still held upwards and arms slack at his sides, and.

At that moment, nothing else in the world mattered but his brother.

Ford didn't even realize that he had started running until his knees hit the grassy ground, hands shaking as he reached for Stanley, the distant thumping footsteps of the twins running toward them, the word escaping his mouth like a soft sigh.

" _Stanley._ "

His brother opened his eyes, and for one frozen second, Stanford saw them clearly.

Their slit pupils, their dull yellow glow. Not his brother's eyes. _Bill's_ eyes.

He recoils despite himself, heart hammering a dull _no no no_ in his chest, hand grasping for the ( _useless, you know that Sixer!_ ) memory gun still tucked in his coat pocket, cursing himself for _not thinking of the consequences of destroying Bill while he was in his brother's_ mind –

Stanley blinked, and the moment was gone. His wide eyes stare back at Ford, clearly confused, but – his pupils are normal, if slightly dilated. The telltale faint glow is gone. And Ford knows, _knows_ that with all his powers and abilities, this - these _eyes_ \- are not something Bill can hide.

He had imagined it. Decades of paranoia had made him see things where they did not exist. A trick of the light, perhaps, and when Dipper and Mabel rush past him to hug Stanley tearfully – both of whom had dealings with Bill, both of whom _knew_ what signs of possession to look for – Ford knows that there is no mystery to be solved here.

And then Stanley speaks, voice strange and confused and he doesn't know them, not even their names, not even his _own_. He looks at them expectantly as if searching for answers they don't have for him, not really. He looks at them like they're _strangers_.

"We had to erase his mind to defeat Bill," Ford said out, voice distant to his own ears, the fate of dream demons the farthest thing from his mind.

"It's all – gone."

* * *

It is a few days later, when Stanley is Stanley again, after pink scrapbooks and a great deal of hugging and many, many tears. He remembers – if not all, but _most_ things, and Stanley off-handedly tells them that he's pretty damn sure he doesn't _want_ to remember those bits and pieces that elude his grasp.

"Kids, I might have dropped a few details from my retellin' of my whole – ten years on th' lam thing," Stanley had said, somewhat carelessly. "…And trust me, they ain't _nice_ details. Don't sweat it."

But even as Dipper and Mabel pack their bags and clean out their shared room, and Stan hands over the role of Mr. Mystery to the handyman, and Ford pulls up his map and holds out the olive branch, the promise of a fulfillment of their childhood dreams –

He sees things, notices detail that he wishes he didn't. How his brother's grins seemed – a bit too wide, a tad too unhinged. A familiar twang in the way he talked, something about his choice of words and flourish of his arms, that reminded Stanford of a being long gone.

A being that should be _dead_.

"But, Grunkle Ford," Mabel tells him, brows furrowed, the day before she and Dipper leave for Piedmont - and the one time Ford gets the nerves up to ask. "That's how Grunkle Stan _always_ acted."

She's right, of course.

Ford writes it all down, every clue, every uncomfortable twist he gets in his gut when Stanley swings an arm over his shoulder, every jolt of fear when Stanley shouts, "Get over here, Sixer, we're breaking out the board games!" The way his brother messed with Dipper ("Grunkle Stan used to be worse about it," the boy tells him with a shrug, and mimes an odd two-handed point. "Eeny meeny miney you!") and was always drawn to Mabel's art and creativity – her weirdness.

He even sees Bill in his brother's appearance - the cane and bowtie, the sharp cut of his Mr. Mystery suit. And… the way Stanley just - _was_ , the loud confidence and sheer force of personality that Ford had used to justify their decade-long estrangement (the same personality that had kept Ford helplessly in Bill's orbit.)

He wonders if he's going mad. Ford knows his brother, and the man before him _was,_ beyond all doubt, Stanley. An imposter couldn't duplicate their almost-eerie twin connection - or, for the matter, the resilient slight gap in communication that still existed between them, even though the two of them had made-up and talked through their issues after the Weirdmageddon.

Ford stares at the ceiling of their ship cabin, hearing the patter of sea rain against the Stan o' War II. Stanley's loud snores reverberate through the enclosed space, and for a moment, it feels like they're children again, with the long journey into the distant future before them.

He thinks, then, about the dream demon that existed out of time and space, who had burned into nonexistence with Stanley in his mindscape and left behind an indelible mark that stretched across the flat confines of linear time. And then, of his brother, who had rebuilt himself entirely from the ashes of his mind and the love of a family unlimited by blood, a family of pigs and handymen and axe-wielding redheads.

Ford knew Bill. But what was more, he knew his brother. Bill was a part of Stanley, in a way that Ford could _see_ _,_ but could not explain.

But maybe, he always had been.


End file.
